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FeedJul 30, 201211:05 PM
Mystery Photo: Is This the Luau or the Tropical Freeze?
Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis — don't make me humiliate you by naming names — know how obsessed I am about locating a high-quality image of several "Lost Memphis" establishments around town. Two of them being the Luau, the Polynesian-themed restaurant on Poplar across from East High School, and the Tropical Freeze, the ice-cream parlor/drive-in that was at the southwest corner of Poplar and White Station.
So what am I to make of this photo, found in the back of a 1968 yearbook for Overton High School?
The yearbook editors, as was often the case then and now, posed various "Who's Who" members of the senior class at local landmarks or popular hangouts, such as the Shoney's Big Boy in Eastgate, or McDonald's, or Shakey's. So obviously, they chose a place that they thought everyone would recognize. And they didn't bother identifying it, for the Vance Lauderdales of the future.
I didn't even notice anything about this photo at first — just two students (Overton seniors Dave Brotherton and Carol Dando, in case you were wondering) — next to a rough stone wall. But then I noticed that Dave was straddling some sort of fountain illuminated by spotlights, he's got his foot on a giant shell sticking out of the wall, and bamboo poles seem to be holding up a thatched roof of some kind.
I can't see anything in the background that would help me identify the location, but only two places in East Memphis would have had fountains with shells and colored lights and bamboo, and those would have been the Luau or the Tropical Freeze.
So which one is this?
(My bet is the Tropical Freeze, which — if my memory serves me correctly — had a high stone wall in the back parking lot, which separated it from the railroad tracks that ran behind it, and the business next door, and I think this is that wall.)
Please label your photos, yearbook editors of the future. Oh yeah, like there will be actual yearbooks in the future ...
Ask Vance is the blog of Vance Lauderdale, the award-winning columnist of Memphis magazine and MBQ: Inside Memphis Business. Vance is the author of two books: Ask Vance: The Best Questions and Answers from Memphis Magazine's History and Trivia Expert (2003), as well as Ask Vance: More Questions and Answers from Memphis Magazine's History Expert (2011). He is also the recipient of quite a few nice awards, the creator of several eye-catching wall calendars, and the only person we know with a vintage shock-treatment machine in his den. 
Went to Overton a couple of years after these two, so this was during my era. Our money is on Tropical Freeze. Thought for a minute it might have been the Tropic Hut, but we're going with Tropical Freeze. (The Luau didn't have the thatch motif outdoors as best we remember.)
Look just to the right of the guy's head above that diagonal bamboo pole - I'm 99% sure that's the Eastgate shopping center office building (where Ashley Stewart is now) peeking out there
The rough stone wall is a dead giveaway for the Tropical Freeze. I'm sure, because one night in the mid 60s I gulped down a papaya colada, then laid my head against that brick wall while I puked it right back up--I thought that would get rid of the immediate brain freeze headache. It didn't.
I'm with critter42. Though you can barely see it, the building way in the background is almost surely the old Julius Lewis office building (with the department store on the first two levels) that is still standing in Eastgate. Now, why oh why, can't somebody just take a decent photo of the Tropical Freeze BUILDING? I've seen the wall, the fountain, even the roof. But not a single good image of the building itself.
Tropical Freeze closed way before 1968, not sayin' this isn't the bldg but I don't remember Pancho's giving a damned about seashells.
This photo was not taken at the Luau. The building in the background is definately the Julius Lewis Store. Therefore, it stand to reason that the photo was taken at the Tropical Freeze. The Tropical Freeze may have closed before 1968, but not WAY before like the previous anonymous posting stated.